September 13, 2012

"... where hundreds of protesters attacked the American Embassy, two days after assailants killed the American ambassador in Libya and crowds tried to overrun the embassy compound in Cairo."

Writes the NYT, where I struggle to figure out how they know the precise motivation of a mob. Who is conveying this information to the NYT? And even if we do know that it is that video that's firing up the mob, I'd like to know the source of the mob-members' knowledge of the video? Surely, they are not individually clicking on YouTube and watching it and deciding on their own how outraged to be. There must be intermediaries inciting the mob, saying things about the video to stir people up and set them off. Who are they? What are they saying?

There's this, down at the end of the article:

Little is known about the origin of the video that provoked the protests, which is called “Innocence of Muslims.” It was made in obscurity somewhere in Southern California and promoted by a network of right-wing Christians with a history of animosity directed toward Muslims. When a 14-minute trailer of it was posted on YouTube in June, it was barely noticed.

But when the amateurish video was translated into Arabic and reposted twice on YouTube in the days before Sept. 11, and promoted by leaders of the Coptic diaspora in the United States, it drew nearly one million views and set off bloody demonstrations.

Where's the proof of causation in that last sentence? Is it just the timing? This happened and then that happened. Correlation/causation. Were the demonstrators people with internet connections, or were the one million views from the Coptics? Who is promoting this theory of causation and why should we trust them? The video was translated.... Save us from the passive voice, New York Times. I remember when journalists asked a set of question the first of which was who?

Meanwhile, we know what our leaders are saying about and to this mob (though I don't see how these statements reach the mob, so maybe they aren't to the mob at all):

“This video is disgusting and reprehensible,” Mrs. Clinton said in remarks at the State Department, broadcast live on CNN. She also said “The U.S. government had absolutely nothing to do with this video.”

Do these mob-members — on the off chance that they're listening — understand that assertion? If they don't care about freedom of speech and want government suppression of blasphemy, then it is the government's responsibility. If there's a spree of robberies in my city, I'm going to get mad at the government, even though the robbers aren't government agents.

Protesters tore down and burned an American flag, replacing it with their own banner proclaiming the Islamic faith, witnesses said.

They want a different system of government, which would prohibit the video Mrs. Clinton denounces as disgusting and reprehensible. And we here in America are having a debate about what our political values are. It is not to censor videos. I trust that's not in question. But there is a question about whether our governmental officials should denounce privately made and distributed movies in an effort to calm down people who hate our political values.

President George Bush said it well: They hate our freedom. Here's his speech from September 20, 2001:

Americans are asking "Why do they hate us?''

They hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.

They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East. They want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa.

These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends. They stand against us because we stand in their way.

We're not deceived by their pretenses to piety.

We have seen their kind before. They're the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way to where it ends in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies.

11 years later, we are having a debate here in America. We've cast George Bush out into the shadows. We elected a President 4 years ago who made many of us believe he could make them not hate us. We're having a new election now, and we have to talk.

Mr Cook, its not a presumed advanced nature, its accepted. If you wish to go back a century or more to draw some weak moral equivalence to the murder and mayhem today then by all means do so but that fact remains, societies and cultures evolve, at least ones that embrace reason and logic.

Colonel Angus said...If Egypt and Libya taught US anything, its don't help the 'noble rebels fighting for freedom' overthrow their despotic rulers.

Bashar Assad is probably smiling right now.

--------------Well, surely the lesson didn't sink in with what happened after 3 trillion blown and 50,000 casualties so far that the idiot Bush and his Neocons spent the noble rebel Freedom Lovers of Iraq and Afghanistan. All that blood and treasure gained us was hatred and ingratitude and a giant target painted on any American in either country not protected by an expensive security detail.

Assad should be smiling. Because despite what the "humanitarians" say...the intel is that the Syrian opposition is run by Islamoid extremists orders of magnitude more violent and radical than the Libyan Al-QAeda sympathizers or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Talk about shooting first and asking questions later. Obamas administration has to walk back Obamas statement about whether Egypt is still one of our allies.Does either Obama or the media or libs REALLY want to go there concerning the stupidity of Romney's statement when obamas handlers have clarify his own stupid statement for the media?

As American citizens, we must criticize our country where we consider it has gone wrong. What point is there to criticizing countries of which we're not citizens? Their behavior neither reflects our consent nor is subject to self-corrective behavior by our lack of consent.

Re-read the Declaration of Independence. Especially the part that says," We hold these truths to be self evident............."

the intel is that the Syrian opposition is run by Islamoid extremists orders of magnitude more violent and radical than the Libyan Al-QAeda sympathizers or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.________________________________

The 'intel' is also that the Iranians are 'all in' protecting their best (only)friend in the ME, Assad. Men (Revolutionary Guard) and material are being flown over and trucked across Iraq.

Is Islam so fragile that it cannot withstand something like this? That is, is it such a house of cards that the tiniest mockery sends its followers into such bloodthirsty rage? And what does that say about Christianity after weathering the storm here in the US? Also, not only who translated it, but is Sam Bacile (thats darn near IM-BECILE when you say it you say it fast) an actual Copt? perhaps he is an agent provocateur?

Ruh roh. Did somebody go nuts and claim Amerikkka was somehow better than other countries? For. Shame. Your wrongthink has called down the wrath of the right Rev. Cook. You savage. Why, don't you realize that at any moment groups of Americans might spontaneously band together, suffocate a diplomat, and drag his dead body through the streets? It's Human Nature! Historical precedent! Science! Racism!

"SGT Ted said....Don't forget that, according to Daves 'logic" it's now OK for Christians to murder movie makers if they are offended by a depiction of God they don't like."

No, that wasn't what I said. I said where is the bright line where freedom of speech no longer applies. Your response equating this to Christians reacting to an offensive film has no merit unless there is a Christian denomination which strictly believes that it is blasphemous to create any image of Jesus, issues death threats on anyone who disobeys that belief, and supports civil unrest and terrorism.

At what point would a "reasonable man" (or woman) say that the line has been crossed? Also, how would any of this prove that "they" (the magical, monolithic, Muslims) "hate" our freedoms? I could accept that our freedoms are threatening and hard for many living in a very different world to understand. But "they hate our freedoms" sounds like jingoistic bullshit to me. Words said to dehumanize and simplify an enormously varied part of our world's population - and which insult and isolate our fellow citizens who happen to be Muslim.

So, Dave, to not be insulted, Christians just need to murder some people and burn some buildings? Don't you think you're setting up some, ah, perverse incentives here? I think things like Everyone Draw Mohammed day are crass and silly. But, uh, I don't pretend it is GOOD to murder them over it.

Human beings are human beings, and we are violent, primitive creatures...

Robert Cook: True to a point, but we are also rational beings who act on our beliefs. What you refuse to notice, as do most liberals, is that beliefs matter and some beliefs are worse than others.

The Klansmen you decry for lynching blacks didn't do so because they were violent, primitive creatures who just had a spasm of primitive creatureness, they did so because they believed that whites are superior to blacks and whites are therefore entitled to kill blacks who get out of line.

Likewise, Muslims don't just start rioting and killing for no reason, they do so because they believe that Islam is superior to all other religions and that any blasphemy of Islam can be rightly met with violence and even killing.

Both Islam and the KKK are based on violent supremacist beliefs which can lead their followers to violence, which they believe is justified.

It is,IMO worthwhile to absorb C4's observation re food aid and money aid. I think he clearly understands where the US has strategic advantage. I cant speak to C4's views on foreign policy, but I am of the Henry Kissinger school of realpolitik.

Now the nasty bastard in me would prefer popping a few nukes in the Middle East--probably starting with Riyadh. but, gentleman that I am, that isnt much of an option. We are best served by using other levers of power--in the case of Egypt, and other mid east shitholes, food and money are easily cut off. C4's take is a good one. C4 understands where the levers of usable power exist; would that our foreign policy undertand.

We saved Saudi Arabia from being threatened by an Iraq that had overen Kuwait and we got 9-11. Our airpower let the Libyans overthrow a dictator, and Obama got the killing of our ambassador. A marine from Los Altos CA learned Arabic and on his third tour wanted to be with the people of Afgghainstan, was invited to a predawn Ramadan breakfast by a police recruit and was killed. Islam is a proud religion and its followers annoyed by being indebted to us. Maybe we should be more careful about letting them be indebted to us.

NPR actually did a pretty good piece on this, answering some of your questions. Apparently the trailer to the film was inadvertently promoted by a single Coptic Christian in the US named Morris Sadek, when he forwarded an email to a bunch of journalists in Egypt with a link to the trailer at the bottom of it. Also, apparently not many of the Libyan protesters had even seen the trailer, but somehow had the impression that this was some huge Hollywood film that was being widely viewed in the US.

Doesn't this raise some important questions - both about the Egyptian media, and the New York Times?

Phx wrote:You don't have to be familiar with Solzhenitsyn to figure out that for every Islamist "deader than a stump" you've left two, three, five, ten or more relatives and friends in their wake who now, what, love us?

Stick to that macho neo-con logic though. It's not like it's going to harm our image in the world.

they are Islamist. That is simply the only reason they need to hate us. Islamists acting in their own self interest would necessarily come into our cross hairs because their policies ae naturally at odds with ours,and they are in fact at war with us.Do you think all the family members of jihadists who are on board for that whole Islamist thing love us or are neutral towards us until we kill their relatives? Isn't the white "death to America" thing part and parcel of heir world view to begin with?

Just as a movie on you tube is enough to cause certain members of the Muslim community to storm our embassies. Or cartoons, or beauty pageants. Whatever.

If we kill them or don't kill them, they hate us anyway. If we didn't kill them and they were Islamists then any successful action of their brethren would make them love their brethren more. Such as storming our embassies for example. If thats successful that will increase the number of people who might be inclined to become a jihadist to become a jihadist. 9/11 increased the popularity of al Qaeda.

So what is your point? Should we allow for more 9/11's so as to increase the love of the jihadis towards us. Should our policies towards them be all about their comfort and their interest, otherwise we are to blame for them hating us?How about you offer your neck up to their blade. See if they like you more afterward.

Let's apply your logic to one of the topics you probably hold dear. Abortion. In the rare cases where an abortion doctor is killed, you should demand that the abortion doctors accommodate those who are going to shot them, as otherwise you will produce more people,likely to shoot abortion doctors. Further it's your policy of promoting abortions tht is causing people to get so crazy that they will shoot abortion doctors. And of course, if you bring the law down on those who do think to kill abortion doctors, you will cause more of their relatives to in turn decide to pick up a gun and carry on the work. Therefore you are to blame for abortion doctors being killed and the only option is for ou to end abortion as we know it, and not for those who would shoot doctors to be held accountable.

Hey, guess what. Turns out the maker of this laugh riot of a film is an egyptian who is a meth dealing felon, who goes by several different aliases, a registered democrat, who secured funds for the movie from other egyptians in alexandria. Then to top it all off, my understanding is that the actors in this film, who are apologizing for having made it, are saying they didn't realize it was an anti-muslim film because their lines and work had nothing to do with it and found out later that there was over-dubbing based on their mouth movements instead.

"At least in the West, you won't see murderous riots because someone made a YouTube video making fun of Jesus."

But, we will occasionally see post-football game riots in college towns where cars are overturned, windows of businesses are smashed, kegs are drunk by the kegful, and many people are arrested.

It's not as far as you think from football frenzied rioters to rioters frenzied over other matters, and vandalism turning to violence against persons. What do you think would happen if we suffered a total economic collapse and food became hard or impossible to come by? You may think those "doomsday hoarders" on the National Geographic channel are nuts, but I don't, (and I'm sure they're closer to your political orientation than mine).

Let's cut to the chase. We have watsed billions of dollars and thousands of fine young men have given their lives over the past 11 years for what?

Either we carpet bomb their cities and holy places or we get the f__k out of all muslim countries and arm Israel to the teeth. There is no middle ground.

By the way, ths US EMBASSY IN CAIRO apologized for the film without mentioning our policies of freedom of speech and subsidizing artists who produce photos of crucifixes in urine. Is it not possible that that craven apology only served to encourage the mob in Benghazi?

"Colonel Angus said...If they are rioting and killing because of some obscure YouTube video, they certainly hate our right to freedom of speech,..."

Falicy #1 - The actions of a few represent the attitudes of all. Thousands may be involved, but there are over 2 billion Muslims in the world including a few who are American citizens even active in our military.

Falicy #2 - "They" are rioting because of a video. The video was produced to foment civil unrest. The person who made it - a Coptic "Christian" with a criminal record and a number of aliases intended it to cause civil unrest. It was aimed at naive religious zealots who have a history of reacting violently to disrespectful representations of Mohammed in order to then rile up naive sabre-rattling zealots in the US so they would start advocating for the sorts of idiocy on this stream... like those denegrating the heartfelt faith of many decent people who we are stuck sharing this world with not to mention the clearly certifiably insane proponents of starting a nuclear war or attempting mass starvation.

Yes, it is. But while it's offensive, no reasonable person would think that it would offend people to the point of starting a riot - well, maybe it would at Liberty University but not in the real world.

The video in question was created with not as satire but to outrage Muslim extremists.

The Emmet Till story is fiction. He was not lynched for flirting with a white woman, but quietly murdered for groping someone else's wife, something that is apt to happen regardless of race. The husband was acquitted because of reasonable doubt, not racism.

If you have to reach back to Emmet Till, you are mighty hard up for examples of whites murdering blacks for racial reasons, while every day blacks murder whites for racial reasons, most famously in the ethnic cleansing of detroit.

Falicy #1 - The actions of a few represent the attitudes of all. Thousands may be involved, but there are over 2 billion Muslims in the world including a few who are American citizens even active in our military.

Wiki puts the number at 1.65 billion Muslims. Sure, that's a lot compared to however many were rioting the other day, but so what?

According to Pew polls over the last ten years, 2% - 65% of Muslims approved of Bin Laden, al-Qaeda and suicide bombing depending on the category and the country. Although only a small number of Muslims commit violence, support for violent extremism is common in the global Muslim community.

Falicy #2 - "They" are rioting because of a video. The video was produced to foment civil unrest....

More accurately, the video was used by radical Muslim leaders to foment civil unrest, just as such Muslim leaders incited the Muslim mobs to violence in the Danish cartoon riots. It also appears that al-Qaeda coordinated the riots

For the record you don't know the motivation of the filmmaker. I don't either, but it seems more likely that he was trying to wake up Westerners (it was in English) to the barbarity of Islam.

In any event, even if he was trying to foment civil unrest among Muslims (who can be incited to a murderous fury even by a false story in Newsweek about someone peeing on a Quran) are they still not accountable for their violence? Do you argue that freedom of speech is suspended any time Muslims are offended?

"Falicy #1 - The actions of a few represent the attitudes of all. Thousands may be involved, but there are over 2 billion Muslims in the world including a few who are American citizens even active in our military."

So answer this... if it's just a few out of billions, why the HELL are we so careful to deplore the denigration of their religion every damn time we make an official statement daring to deplore the violence?

Some of us here may say "they" and conceptually group violent Muslims with the street vendor who just wishes that everyone would cut it out already so that the tourists would come back, but our GOVERNMENT inextricably binds the violent actions and hurt feelings of your supposed insignificant minority to Islam as a whole in Every. Last. Official. Statement.

Everyone accepts the premise that there is something wrong with the movie. Is that premise correct?

When I watched the trailer for the movie, most of it appeared to be based on Muslim history and accepted stories in the hadiths. I admit I didn't follow the story line in the short clips very well, so the full movie could have some misinformation I missed. If the producer is from Egypt, he probably knows Islam much better than most Americans, so we can’t automatically assume it is wrong, just because it contains facts which we haven’t come across before.

It is possible, or probable, that the real problem with the movie is that it is too accurate in its portrayal of Mohammad. Sometimes the truth hurts. For example, it is well established that Mohammad married a 6 year old, and had sex with her when she was 9. If you call Mohammad a pedophile, many Muslims will kill you if they can get away with it, even though that accusation is based on their on books.

You don't have to do exhaustive research to find someone somewhere in the west who is critical of Mohammed and his religion. With even less research, you can find many thousands of people in Islamic lands who are willing to riot and murder in protest of such criticism and thousands of others who are willing to manipulate such rage for other goals. Where there's smoke, there's generally a smoke making machine in those lands.....There's no immediate solution. I would recommend that our President tell those demonstrators that three dead bodies are offensive to he American street and that they should all fuck off already. I understand that this might inflame the situation, but can anyone suggest anything any American President can do that would not aggravate those assholes.....For a long term solution, I would recommend fracking like crazy and achieving energy independence ASAP. There is no way of making those assholes sane, but there is a way of making them irrelevant.

And I wondered... how does anyone else in the world manage it? We fought a horrible war to end slavery (among other things, that was certainly one of goals) and is that enough? No. Were rivers of blood enough? No.

Nothing is enough because no one WANTS it to be enough.

To some extent, I think that this is a Democratic party thing. They were the party that backed slavery, North and South before and during the Civil War, that practiced Jim Crow and formed almost the entirety of the KKK, and were almost all the votes against the Civil Rights Acts. And, now, maybe through collective guilt for those actions, support the overtly racist policies of the Obama Administration, esp. as practiced by the DoJ. Maybe not as racist as resegregating the federal government, as was done by Wilson, but still highly racist.

But, the charge of racism doesn't work that well for the Party of Lincoln, and esp. for those of us whose ancestors worked against slavery before the Civil War, and fought against it during that war, or whose ancestors did not come here until later, and/or faced their own discrimination.

Sure, these spurious charges of racism may have helped Obama some getting elected the first time, but with all of the instances of racism practiced by the Dems and Obama before us, and after crying wolf for so long, these charges have no effect on most of us here, except to identify those making them as having no actual viable arguments to make.

creely23 said.... support for violent extremism is common in the global Muslim community. AND Do you argue that freedom of speech is suspended any time Muslims are offended?"

Hmmm... At the same time Gallup reports that 95% of Libyans wanted militias disarmed BEFORE the US Consulate attack. People basically just want to live their lives. After all on this blog about 50% seem to support nuking half the planet. ok, I may have exaggerated a litte.

And to clarify I don't suggest that freedom of speech should be suspended. It's enshrined in the Bill of Rights. But at this point it seems pretty clear that the guy who made that video knew exactly what he was doing - had an agenda - and may have crossed the line when his speech became the same as "falsely crying 'fire' in a crowded theater." Yes, it was used by fire-brands to get people worked up - but that was its intent. I'm not letting the bad actors on either side off the hook. In my mind their all culpable.

Emmet Till was not lynched. He was furtively murdered. Lots of white folks get murdered for groping someone else's wife, regardless of race. It is a notoriously unsafe activity.

Emmett was said to be lynched because the husband was acquitted, but the husband was acquitted because he plausibly denied murdering Emmett Till. It is only a lynching if those doing the execution openly do it and argue it is justified and necessary.

"And to clarify I don't suggest that freedom of speech should be suspended. It's enshrined in the Bill of Rights. But at this point it seems pretty clear that the guy who made that video knew exactly what he was doing - had an agenda - and may have crossed the line when his speech became the same as "falsely crying 'fire' in a crowded theater." Yes, it was used by fire-brands to get people worked up - but that was its intent. I'm not letting the bad actors on either side off the hook. In my mind their all culpable."

"I'm always amazed when people faced with a wild-eyed Imam shouting, "I will kill all infidels in the name of Allah!", are interested in wasting their time and effort to get to the "real" motivation."

Well, it's important to know what these imam's value most, and what they value most is the kuffar forced to live in submission to islamic law. These riots are simply the strong arm version of the OIC's "Istanbul process" to impose world wide blasphemy laws. In fact, If you search "Ikwan web" you will find that Morsi just issued a statement on the riots calling for just that (world wide laws against "defamation of religion") only a short time ago. It's the old choice: convert, submit(in this case to islamic blasphemy laws) or die. You, as a filthy kuffar, do not have the right to govern any portion of the earth with your man made laws. It's just that simple.RopenIdIdentifier=

" . . .it seems pretty clear that the guy who made that video knew exactly what he was doing - had an agenda - and may have crossed the line when his speech . . "

If the guy really is a copt, he certainly has a legitimate beef with islam and islamic law. His people have been brutalized by it for centuries. Moreover, it projects itself as part of the political aparatus of the state (i.e. the primary source of laws and government - now more than ever). Are you really going to tell refugees from countries governed by islamic law that they are not free to criticize the brutal political systems of the countries they fled, just because that politic system covers itself with the beard of religion? How despicable.

...and LBJ declined to run again rather than lose the nomination to RFK or Clean Gene.

9/13/12 5:25 PM"

Are y'all taking crazy pills or am I? Truman lost to Ike! Yeah, a badly run war is a great way to get the boot in the US! You think FDR would've been reelected if D-Day failed? And for those who say But what about W...A-ha, a-ha...

Hmmm... At the same time Gallup reports that 95% of Libyans wanted militias disarmed BEFORE the US Consulate attack. People basically just want to live their lives.

Dave: That's one statistic out of many.

I'm not saying that all Muslims support Islamic violence. I am saying that many do and it varies from place to place and time to time. In 2003 Muslims'confidence in Bin Laden was sky-high, ranging from 20% in Lebanon to 72% in Palestine.

Do you understand how horrifying that is? Bin Laden declared it was the religious duty of Muslims to kill Americans anywhere and anytime and hundreds of millions of Muslims, when polled said, "I have confidence in that guy to do the right thing." It declined over time to about half that amount but it is still barbaric and horrifying.

I grew up in the South and I knew racists, even KKK members. Most of them just wanted to live their lives, but they still believed toxic stuff. They might not lynch anyone but they probably wouldn't stop a lynching if they encountered one. That's my impression of a large percentage of Muslims.

But at this point it seems pretty clear that the guy who made that video knew exactly what he was doing - had an agenda - and may have crossed the line when his speech became the same as "falsely crying 'fire' in a crowded theater."

Dave: Again, you don't know what was on his mind. I consider it more likely that he was trying to wake up ignorant Westerners like yourself to the barbarity of Islam.

But whatever he intended, telling the truth about Muhammad and Islam will excite a fair percentage of Muslims to a murderous frenzy that is justified by Muhammad's teachings.

What I have written on this blog is enough to get me killed if I lived in a Muslim country and my identity were known.

Apologies, Synova. Coming in late, I missed the back and forth. I've read so many comments at variously locales denigrating this guy just for making a movie - very frustrating and upsetting. As for the botany reference - I wish I had your green thumb. My connection to the topic extends no further than the name.